Campaign Matters; Party at Risk: Can Giuliani Save The Liberals?

By FRANK LYNN

Published: April 6, 1989

rrAt first glance, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the Republican, seems like a strange choice for the Liberal Party ticket. And the party leader, Raymond B. Harding, appears to be risking his party's future by endorsing him for mayor.

But on closer examination, the move makes sense. Both men have proved to be quite flexible in their political careers.

To many Democrats, the move seems so cynical and against the political grain that if Mr. Harding has made the wrong choice, he and his fading party will be in serious trouble after the November election.

Mr. Harding's principal perception problem is that he comes across as a political boss in a party that is supposed to be liberal and democratic. His wish is the tiny Liberal Party's command.

His candidate, Mr. Giuliani, appears to be a classic conservative with a tough crime-fighting image. He is a Reagan Administration appointee, a supporter of the death penalty and is opposed to abortion and even the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

Mr. Giuliani has tempered his abortion position so that it is similar to that of other prominent New York Catholic politicians, like Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. But Mr. Giuliani does not always shift like that, because he wants to appeal to Republicans as well as Democrats, conservatives as well as liberals.

But there is another Rudolph Giuliani who is considerably more liberal. He has even described himself as a Kennedy Democrat until the disastrous George McGovern Presidential campaign in 1972. That race gave liberalism a bad name in many quarters, and, Mr. Giuliani said, turned him to the Republican Party.

The switch certainly did not hurt his career. He rose steadily in 14 years in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan Administrations in the Justice Department and the United States Attorney's office.

The Nassau County Comptroller, Peter T. King, a Republican who ran for state attorney general in 1986, knew Mr. Giuliani well in 1967, when they were both summer law-school interns at the law firm of Nixon Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Mitchell and commuting to their South Shore homes on the Long Island Rail Road. Both were political junkies.

''He was a very liberal Bobby Kennedy Democrat,'' Mr. King said yesterday. ''As I recall, he took the liberal position on every issue, civil rights, the Vietnam War - you name it.''

Since then, Mr. Giuliani's ideology has been submerged throughout his governmental career. Law-enforcement officials are supposed to keep their politics to themselves.

Which is the real Rudolph Giuliani now? Mr. Harding said that on every important municipal issue, Mr. Giuliani was ''compassionate'' and ''a populist.''

''I see a guy from Brooklyn who cares about his hometown and its problems,'' Mr. Harding said. That, to Mr. Harding, adds up to a liberal and a Liberal.

''I don't want to be classified,'' Mr. Giuliani said. ''On law-enforcement matters, I'm probably conservative. On other issues, I'm more moderate or liberal, depending on which position will solve the problem.''

Ideology aside, Mr. Harding is also a very pragmatic politician who is interested in strengthening his barely surviving party and his leadership. Mr. Harding, the leader from 1977 to 1982, rose again in 1986 from the ashes of a four-year struggle that nearly destroyed the party and resulted in his temporary exile. That fight was over the spoils of the party's most recent triumph, its support of an underdog Mr. Cuomo in 1982.

Now, there is apparently another underdog. Mr. Harding and the Liberals have been shut out of City Hall throughout the Koch administration because they opposed Mr. Koch in 1977 and supported Mr. Cuomo for mayor. Yet Mr. Harding is also persona non grata in Albany because Mr. Cuomo still resents Mr. Harding's embarrassing complaint to the State Investigation Commission about what he contended was interference by the Governor's son Andrew and a longtime friend, Fabian Palomino, in the party fight.

In addition, Mr. Harding is convinced that none of the three Democratic mayoral challengers - Manhattan Borough President David N. Dinkins, City Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin and Richard Ravitch, former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority - can defeat the Mayor in the Democratic primary. So why back a loser and still be shut out of City Hall and Albany?

''He is doing the absolutely correct thing from his standpoint,'' said Lawrence Mandelker, the seasoned treasurer of the Koch campaign. ''If Giuliani wins, Harding is sitting pretty. He will be a senior adviser to the new mayor, and his party will be revitalized.''